Edmund Spenser as Promethean poet: critical issues and the role of magic and Platonism in The Faerie Queene

Abstract

One of the key points at which Platonism and magic or what could be called ‘Platonic magic’ is found in Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene is in his use of the image of the classical Titan Prometheus. Examining Spenser’s text in light of Renaissance Platonist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s writings on magic, we can see that Prometheus serves as a model for Spenser’s tremendous creative ability as a ‘poet magus’. However, an examination of the Promethean qualities of ‘Two Cantos of Mutabilitie’ also reveals that in the final sections of The Faerie Queene Spenser appears to lose hope in the Promethean power of the poet.